


Full Circle

by Cat_Moon



Series: HB Assortment [4]
Category: Moonlight (TV), Original Work
Genre: Blood and Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-17 18:08:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20625320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Cat_Moon
Summary: When Josef and Shane pay a visit to the castle where they lived with Sire Max, old memories and more secrets are revealed.  The story of Josef’s turning (as it happens in my HB universe), complete with the infamous ‘torch bearing mob.’





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to put this in the 'original work' category as well, because it is so different from the ML canon, and more my own universe I've created with Shane and the other vampires, where I've brought Josef from ML over into it. Wanted readers to know it's probably closer to an original work than ML. 
> 
> Warnings: Max was a sick puppy who played head games with the boys. There are dark scenes, but also loving scenes between Josef and Shane. As usual, I don’t wallow in gratuitous violence and I’ve tried to strike a balance and only provide as much detail as is necessary to the story. 
> 
> Notes: As usual, I didn’t try overly hard to sound all “period.” I did some research, but I’m no history expert/buff nor do I pretend to be. There are a couple of references to Shane’s turning story, and Josef and Shane's first meeting in "Bonnie Prince Josef."

  


_Maxie was a perverse vampire. He got his rocks off in the strangest ways. I think it amused him to steal Josef away from his royal family and bring him into the Alexei “family”. As for me… do I admit I’m glad he did it? Through the centuries that followed, we both had one constant. That which never changes and it always there. There’s a human expression, “Home is where the heart is.” We are each other’s home._  
\--Shane Alexander, "Bonnie Prince Josef"

  
**Castle Alexei, Leningrad Oblast, Russia 2010:**

  
It was like stepping back in time.

With the modern parking lot at their backs and a discreet distance away, the building in front of them seemed untouched by the centuries that had passed since the two vampires had last been there. Even after Sara had gone inside with the baby, they remained standing before the imposing fortress. They didn’t speak. Being there again was both strange and familiar. They could almost hear the echoes of old ghosts; cries, of pain and passion; screams, of the undead and the dying. This was history, and it was _theirs_.

When the sound of tourists walking the gardens and relaxing in the Great Room finally broke through the spell woven, they went inside.

Castle Alexei was built under the exacting specifications of Maximilian Alexei, just outside of what used to be known as Ladoga, Russia, a once thriving multi cultural trading village. When Peter the Great founded the nearby town of Novaya Ladoga, the name was changed to Staraya Ladoga – old Ladoga. The grandeur of the old homestead far eclipsed that of its neighboring castle, the Fortress of Ladoga, having avoided war damage and remaining remarkable untouched through the centuries. The castle had passed down to Shane and Josef after Maximilian’s death, although they’d avoided going back ever since escaping and the ownership could not be traced to them. Nowadays it was a fairly profitable Bed & Breakfast. Its guests were strictly human though; this B&B was not vampire friendly. As part of their security measures of secrecy about their past and who they were, they wanted no one to know of its vampire heritage.

Home sweet home.

Now, after over three hundred years, it was time to lay old ghosts to rest forever.

XXX

Dawn. Almost no light filtered into the dungeon area, it was cool and dark. This part of the castle was currently off limits to all, guests and staff alike. It held too many memories; more than any other part of the castle, this was hallowed ground. The lavish bedrooms upstairs had been for fucking, overnight human guests, and just for appearances. When the sun came up, it was here the vampires had retreated to.

It was there that Shane found Josef, with the echoes of the past bouncing off the stone walls, and the smells and sheer _feel_ of the place bringing it all back again. They spooned together on the simple pallet that had once been his bed, the elder vampire throwing a protective arm over the younger one. Just like they used to, long ago.

Josef willed himself to relax in the embrace. He’d been feeling off center since arriving, a bit vulnerable. “Being here again… it almost feels like Max is still here, like I’m going to turn a corner and there he’ll be,” he admitted.

“He’s not. He’s gone forever,” Shane said firmly, tightening his arm. They were silent for a time, just soaking up each other’s presence.

“Do I get a bedtime story?” Josef asked after awhile, in a teasing tone.

“Why not,” Shane responded in a voice that tried for nonchalance but failed. “Once upon a time…”

  
XXX

_Max was a depraved, raving lunatic. He went and got himself a Viking, and he thought he was going to make him into one of his “boy toys.” Man, that was his first mistake. It ain’t happening. Lund was what we know nowadays as a freshie. Six centuries or so later Maxie had his eye on yet another young man, whose blood he predicted would be sweetest of the sweet. He told me over ‘breakfast’ one morning, “I think we need another Lund, don’t you?” I was pretty fed up with it at that point, so I suggested he just turn the boy instead. So he tried. The rest is, as they say, history._

\--Shane Alexander, Songs of the Past

**Ladoga, Russia. 1624:**

  
Sean sat at the long dining table, waiting, trying to curb his boredom. He’d only just returned to Castle Alexei, after all, it should have taken longer for the urge to flee to come over him. He’d been feeling out of sorts of late, adrift for some reason he could not fathom. Or perhaps it was honesty whispering that he _did_ know. He supposed it was habit that led him back here time and again. Certainly there was no need to put up with his avaricious sire anymore.

Finally Maximilian swept into the room, making his usual grand entrance despite the fact that it was just the two of them there and he didn’t impress Sean these days (if he ever really had).

Max trailed a hand over Sean’s face in a caress as he drifted past the chair, taking his seat at the head of the table. “My apologies for the delay. Some plans…did not go the way I had expected.”

He shrugged, although he could tell by Max’s demeanor that he had a surprise awaiting. That always made Sean nervous. He would not have to respond, nor wait long for his sire to continue.

“I’d so hoped to have a brother for you today. I know how much you wanted one.”

Sean stiffened at the words, a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What have you done?” he hissed.

“As you asked,” Max replied, inclining his head toward the younger vampire. “The boy was indeed delicious, as I predicted. I did try to turn him afterward, but alas I was not successful. These things sometimes happen, as you know,” he brushed the announcement off like a spot of lint from his cape.

Sean cursed to himself. How could he not have known that Maximilian would take his flippant comment about turning young Josef Konstantin seriously? He had assumed Max would toy with Josef for a time, prolong the anticipation before making a move. He’d never expected Max would act so swiftly. He had hoped to have time to intervene, not wanting the boy’s fate to mirror Lund’s, but Sean was suddenly uncertain which was the lesser of the evils. He had grown accustomed to the way his sire could twist things in your mind if you were not vigilant. Max was always trying to lure Sean back and keep him there, but after Lund that had proved impossible. Sean knew Max was seeing this potential new “family member” as a way to accomplish that. Putting the blame on Sean for Josef’s fate was yet another part of the game.

“And you left him there?!” he snarled.

Even dead, he didn’t deserve to be discarded like trash. Besides, it was not good for the locals to come across the remains of their meals, it would attract dangerous attention. Sean had no doubt Maximilian did not behave in that manner when there was no one to clean up after him, the elder vampire was not stupid. Sean hated how well Max knew him. He would take care of it. The guilt though, that would not be enough to hold him.

XXX

_"You’re only ninety. You’ve never been chased by a torch bearing mob.”_

\--Josef to Mick, "No Such Thing As Vampires"

  
The body lay in the tall grass at the side of the road. Far enough away to be fairly concealed but not hidden enough to erase possibility of detection.

Sean sighed. He dropped to his knees beside it, eyes taking in the pale features that only last night had been animated, the cheeks ruddy with color as he’d blushed. There was no heartbeat. Seeing Josef like this was his undoing; guilt flooded him. This _was_ his fault. The young man didn’t deserve to die so young, not when his whole life was still ahead of him.

Something like desperation washed over Sean. He had to try. Something, anything. Without thinking, Sean shoved his sleeve up and ripped open his arm with his fangs. He forced Josef’s mouth open and let the blood from the deep wound drip in. Endless moments passed as he knelt there, willing it to work.

Then he was distracted by a sound that chilled him, one that all vampires feared in those days. He heard the mob in the distance, combing the countryside in the dark with their torches, hunting for his kind.

At first Sean thought he was just seeing only what he wished to, but soon realized that throat muscles were indeed working as Josef began to swallow the blood. Relief flooded him when his arm was grabbed by a hand, pressing it closer to the mouth that was now sucking strongly.

Josef’s eyes flew open and he watched the expressions flash in them rapidly. At first they were blank, then confusion crowded in, then panic, staring up at Sean with incomprehension. Sean took advantage of his confusion to pull his arm away, slapping Josef’s cheeks to spur awareness.

“What happened to me?”

“I know you are confused, but we don’t have time. We must leave _now_,” Sean insisted urgently. “They’re coming this way.”

“Who’s coming?” Josef asked, eyes darting around the dark landscape anxiously.

“The mob that’s going to kill us if they catch us,” Sean replied, pulling Josef up.

They ran, Sean holding tightly to the hand of the fledgling. In his weak, newly turned state, they were not going to be able to make it far. Luckily, the caves were close and he headed for them, knowing they would provide concealment.

[ ](https://imgur.com/3wRiDGa)

They managed to stay out of the notice of the mob, and soon entered the safety of the caves. Sean navigated the inner depths easily, not stopping until they were far back into the caverns, beyond any point a human would dare to enter at night.

When he finally deemed them relatively safe, Sean dropped the hand he’d been clutching. Panting with exertion, Josef wrapped his arms around his middle, crouching down against the wall of the cave.

“We’ll have to stay here till almost dawn.”

“What happened to me?!” Josef demanded in a feigned bravado that faded instantly as a strange shudder ran through the entire length of his body. "I feel…odd…”

Sean crouched in front of him, resting a hand on his shoulder to comfort. “What do you last remember?”

Josef struggled to make order of the chaotic jumble that was his mind. “I was on my way back to the village. My horse frightened, tossed me off. I thought I heard something as I picked myself up, but…then there was pain…” His hand flew up to his neck at the memory, coming away covered with a drying stickiness that had him fighting down panic. “I struggled but the creature was too strong for me.”

Sean met his anxious gaze. “It wasn’t a creature, it was Maximilian,” he explained. “He is a vampire. And he turned you into a vampire.”

Vampires were not fantasy to these people and this time, they were quite known and feared. There was no disbelief at the news, only a slowly evolving realization that his life would be forever changed.

“If I am now a vampire, why are you here alone with me?”

As one of his first questions, it was one Sean hadn’t been expecting. He was impressed that the lad’s quick mind was already working. He smiled, showing his fangs.

As another memory came to him, Josef grabbed Sean’s arm, eyes taking in the torn shirt and the arm that now bore no mark. He glanced around the dark space they were in. “You have no wound. I should not be able to see this far inside the caves at night.”

“We heal fast,” Sean said, a bit amused that Josef seemed to have forgotten that he was still holding his arm. “And see better than humans. We do everything better than humans,” he added, wanting Josef to know from the beginning that there were amazing advantages to what they were. “I’m sorry it had to happen to you this way, though. Everyone should have a choice.”

“A person would willingly choose this? Did you?”

“Yes,” Sean answered. “I was dying, and it was the only way. I was not ready to leave this earth yet.”

Josef struggled to take in all the new information that was bombarding him, both mentally and physically, and to make sense of it all. He gazed intently at the man in front of him, the one he now knew to be not man but vampire. Or was he both? There was so much new to learn suddenly, despite the shock and confusion he felt a tingle of excitement move through him. The vague gnawing in his stomach was growing slowly stronger too though; he could feel it building and something instinctual told him it would get much, much worse, until it drove him mad with the demanding to be fed. The pain and the hunger together brought another memory to the surface as two kinds of ache merged into one.

“After the pain,” he began, his voice gone low and husky. “There was pleasure.” Before Sean could formulate a response, Josef suddenly lunged forward and took his mouth in a kiss. Unused to the fangs that he hadn’t yet learned to keep retracted, they got in the way, pricking the other vamp’s mouth as they kissed. “Hungry…” he murmured against the enticing lips.

“That’s not what you’re hungry for,” Sean answered with a trace of amusement in his voice.

“You,” Josef said, resisting the half hearted attempts to dislodge him. “Captivated me since I first laid eyes on you.”

“Your quick mind is going to get you in a _lot_ of trouble,” Sean muttered against the cool skin he found under his mouth. The conversation reminded him of the one they’d had at the party so much he couldn’t help responding in similar kind. It wasn’t just blood lust newly turned vamps often found hard to resist. It was going to be a chore teaching this one impulse control.

“Nothing new,” Josef replied cheekily. He found the enjoyable sensations a welcome diversion from the clamor of other things that demanded his attention, things he wasn’t ready to deal with yet. The neck so close to his mouth drew him like a siren, and he abruptly recalled the taste of the blood from Sean’s arm earlier. He realized he could smell it. It overwhelmed him like a heady perfume and before he quite knew what he was doing, he’d broken skin and was sucking on the blood from the wound he’d made. The minute shudder in the body under him was all the encouragement he needed. It should have been strange, getting drunk on this red ambrosia rather than fine wine, but as his head spun he decided human food and drink was just a meager substitute.

Sean captured Josef’s head in his hands, but allowed him to drink for a bit longer. He really needed to get control of the situation. The reasons were many, not the least of which that Max would kill them both if he let things go too far. His sire would demand to be the one who ‘initiated’ his new turn. It was not Sean’s place. “Have you been with a man before, this way?” he asked Josef, who was now practically in his lap, his excitement as unmistakable as Sean’s own.

“No,” Josef answered impishly. “Caught two of the stable hands going at it in the horse stall one day. Father took them out and beat them both. I used to watch them from a crack between the boards. It looked like they were enjoying themselves.”

Sean couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “You are going to fit right in.” He found the youth delightfully enthusiastic, his eyes took in the world with a freshness totally unlike so many of the stuffy royals he had met in his time.

“Will you do that to me?” Josef asked quietly, looking searchingly into Sean’s eyes.

Sean knew it wasn’t meant as a request he wanted immediately fulfilled, but as a general question about the future. The words caught in his throat, almost choking him. He couldn’t give voice to a promise he probably would be unable to keep, but at that moment… he vowed to himself to try. He couldn’t bear the thought of this innocent young man (yes, innocent, no matter his worldly words and cocky attitude) having the same experience he himself had gone through, of his first time that way being with Max.

“What about women?” Sean asked hoping to distract him with conversation.

“I had the best courtesans in the land,” he boasted. “They taught me all the skills to please a lover. I can show you…”

Sean grabbed the hands that were reaching for him in a firm grip. “We have no time for that distraction now. You need fresh blood to strengthen you, and I must replenish what you’ve taken from me.” He hadn’t wanted to leave the safety of the cave just yet, but in order to avoid temptation he knew he needed to get out for a bit and clear his head. “Stay here and be silent. I will return with something that will make the pain stop for awhile.”

Josef leaped to his feet as Sean turned, grabbing his arm to stop him. “Don’t leave me here alone!” he pleaded, fear making his voice rough.

Sean held him by the shoulders. “It will be fine, you’ll be safe in here,” he promised.

“What about you?” Josef asked, worry for the other vampire in his expression.

“I have survived six hundred and eleven years as a vampire; I have all the skills I need to look after myself.” He drew Josef closer and gave him a long, gentle kiss. “Trust me,” he said softly when he released him again. He didn’t leave until Josef had nodded assent.

The luck that was with him this night held, and soon Sean was returning with a body slung over his shoulder. Josef jumped to his feet as Sean dropped the man to the ground, staring down at the body.

“He was a highwayman,” Sean explained, unsure if the new vampire was feeling any moral unease or not. “He was given a quicker death than the hanging would have been. Come, drink,” he urged. “The blood is still warm.”

Josef licked his lips as he scented the air, and then pounced with total blood lust enthusiasm and no finesse.

“There are always choices, once you’ve learned the control needed to make them,” he told Josef as he watched him feed, thinking he was going to be a natural. These words were going to go in one ear and out the other right now, but Sean wanted the ideas to be there, subliminally. “We can spare the innocent and kill the evil ones. It is not necessarily to kill everyone we feed from either; we can stop before making a glutton of ourselves.”

Josef looked up at him guiltily, as if caught being just that. “I seem to have misplaced my table manners.”

Sean grinned, waving him to continue. “Enjoy.”

Josef raised a hand to the older vampire, feeling a strange electric charge go though him at the thought of the two of them feeding, together.

Sean didn’t try to instruct Josef on where the arteries were, or the best place to puncture for optimum results, he just let the new vampire enjoy his first meal in wild abandon. It was a state that would become an all too rare treat as he redressed himself in the cloak of respectable society to walk among humans. He merely joined him, and they both had their fill.

As they waited for the long night to pass, they talked. Josef asked his endlessly curious questions and Sean answered them. He told Josef of his past, regaled him with adventures from his glory days as a Viking. Explained some finer points about being a vampire that he suspected Max might ‘accidentally’ forget to mention. As a beginning, it was as good as one could get.

Just before dawn when the sky was barely beginning to lighten and the vampire hunters would have put aside their torches and returned to their homes, they slipped out of their hiding place and made the trek back to the castle.

Toward Josef Konstantin’s new life.

XXX

**Castle Alexei, present:**

Shane came back to the current century to the feel of kisses being rained over his face. Forehead, cheeks, lips, over and over. “Good memories?” he asked the one bestowing them with a grin. It warmed him in a special way, to know as they reminisced that while it was without consent, it wasn’t too traumatic. Good memories. They had thought there were so few of those, but perhaps they had more than they’d realized.

“You were so hot that night,” Josef told him without pause. “I was a goner.”

“Hah!” Shane contradicted. “You were the one attacking _me_, as I remember.”

“Oh yeah, and you were really fighting back,” Josef scoffed with a grin. “Then you had to go and distract me with food.” He smacked Shane on the arm to express how he felt about that.

“You were the first person I ever turned,” Shane admitted to Josef, who stopped and gaped at him at the admission. “In the beginning I wasn’t ready to be a sire, and then for a long time I didn’t feel I could subject someone to this life. There was a…difficult time after I realized Max had tricked me when I didn’t know how to feel about what I was. Then when I finally came to realize my turning _was_ part of the God’s plans, I decided I’d have to see a ‘sign’ first so I’d know the person was meant to be turned, that it was Odin's will.” And after that, came the more modern notion of forever being too long to make that kind of commitment lightly.

“What was the sign with me?” Josef asked quietly.

“With you…” Shane shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t think about any of that. I just had to save you.”

“You saved me,” Josef told him, gazing intently into his eyes the way he had all those centuries ago. “You’re my savior.”

And then, it wasn’t the past they lost themselves in, it was each other’s bodies.

**End part one.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In "Songs of the Past" it was revealed that Shane had a young Viking friend named Lund, who came to him on his death bed and told him he could be saved by Max.

  
  
_Lund was a younger man, just in his twenty fifth year. He had crewed with Odd on a number of longboat journeys and had, for some inexplicable reason, aspired to follow in the elder Viking’s footsteps. That had been several seasons ago however, and Lund’s attention had wandered of late. He had taken up with new acquaintances from another land and hadn’t been seen in the village in many months._  
\--Songs of the Past  
  
  
**Staraya Ladoga, 1013 A.D:**  
  
  
The first time Lund came to him, it was at Maximilian’s behest. Smiling shyly, he sat down next to his friend.  
  
“It is my honor to serve you.”  
  
Odd took his arm and pushed up the sleeve, finger tracing the skin of the human’s wrist. He noted the shiver it produced, although his own answering echo was more from discomfort than pleasure. He still wasn’t used to the sensuality of the act. This strange, new world he’d been thrust into left the formerly self assured Viking feeling uncertain of many things, both inward and outward.  
  
“Take what you need, Einherjar,” Lund said quietly, offering his neck in unmistakable invitation.  
  
The vampire shook his head slightly. He was still too unsure of his control to risk feeding from the neck. This was his first meal without his sire looking on, and he was nervous. “Another time, when I have more experience in these things.”  
  
“I trust you,” Lund insisted.  
  
“It is not your decision,” he said, harshly, and to forestall further conversation he pulled the wrist to his mouth and sunk his teeth in, trying to ignore the contented moan as he began feeding.  
  
  
XXX  
  
  
Eighth to Tenth Century Viking burial mounds along the Volkhov River near Staraya Ladoga, Russia  
  
  
The morning was overcast, huge clouds hung in the sky and threatened to rain down on the countryside. It matched the somber mood. Shane stood at the foot of the Viking Mounds, stumbling slightly over the Norse words to a prayer, due to his native tongue being so long in disuse. Sara stood next to him in supportive silence, their daughter in her arms.  
  
Shane had always felt a bit weird about feeding from Lund; he couldn’t help but think the boy was little more than a slave. Lund had disagreed, he felt it was an honor to serve the walking Einherjar and he was well taken care of in exchange for his duties. Or so he believed.  
  
Shane would have liked to think Max was showing kindness when he let Lund spend so much time with him, but knew it was merely another way to keep his vampire under his thumb. After Lund died, Shane left and rarely returned; when he did it wasn’t for long. Not until Josef.  
  
All Lund had wanted to do was serve the Gods with honor. Young and impatient, the time it took to become a skilled and experienced Viking warrior was too frustrating a wait for him. He’d been easy prey for the unscrupulous Maximilian. Desire, desperation, the elder vampire had skillfully exploited the human weaknesses.  
  
The problem with keeping regular blood donors in those days was that they didn’t have the knowledge of the human body that keeps the freshies healthy in the present day. It was easy to take too much, too often; anemia ran rampant until the blood slaves on staff looked almost as pale as their masters.  
  
Shane wasn’t there when Lund died. Even too weak to get out of bed, he’d begged Shane to feed from him. Instead, not wanting to worsen his condition, the vampire had left the castle and sought his meal elsewhere. He never knew if Max had fed from Lund that night – didn’t want to know. He might have killed him on the spot. All that was left to do when he returned was to give his old friend a proper Viking burial.  
  
Would Shane have turned Lund had he been there at the end? That was another question he’d never know the answer to. Max would never entertain the idea; to him slaves and vampire ‘family’ were separate. Someone who’s there to provide blood would never become one of the elite.  
  
Even after all the centuries, it still hurt to think about. Lund never seemed to realize that Max wasn’t the walking Einherjar and for that Shane was grateful. His own disillusionment had begun slowly, but by the time his fledgling stage was over he’d admitted to himself that he’d been tricked. When the Swedes came, Shane took it upon himself to warn them away from Maximilian. Through that defiance though, he came to understand that his act of saving fellow Vikings was serving Odin. That’s when he started to think that perhaps he was Odin’s chosen after all. And that was his turning point.  
  
When Shane was done with the prayer he knelt down, pushing some of the overgrown grass away from the small runestone he’d placed there centuries ago. Tracing his finger over the symbols, he murmured the words that were caved in runes on its surface.  
  
"Odd ræistu stæin þenna æftiR Lund, gjöfull félagi æftiR Óðinn."  
  
(*Odd raised this stone in memory of Lund, a loyal servant of Odin.)  
  
Shane was just a proud Viking on his death bed, looking for an honorable end. Lund was an impressionable youth, lured by the promise of an honorable life. One died too soon, another would live forever. And remember.  
  
Josef passed Sara as she walked away from the site, dropping a kiss to the top of his niece’s head as he went by. He joined Shane and stood next to him for awhile without speaking, looking at the stone in respectful silence.  
  
“Did you sleep with him?” Josef finally asked.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Did you want to?”  
  
There was a slight pause. “No. I felt responsible.”  
  
“You felt responsible for me, too. And he was the one who recruited you.”  
  
“You were stronger.”  
  
Josef fell silent again, thinking about the words.  
  
“I never loved him like I love you.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
  
**End part two**  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Odd raised this stone in memory of Lund, a loyal servant of Odin. Actually says, “generous companion of Odin” since I wasn’t able to locate the Norse for loyal and servant and didn’t feel like spending hours searching for it.
> 
> Reminder: Einherjar are the dead Viking warriors that go to Valhalla, so the “walking Einherjar” (vampires) are the walking dead.


	3. Chapter 3

[ ](https://imgur.com/dL0Xgmb)

Josef, Max, Shane, Volkhov River

_“Max drained me and it didn’t turn him human.”  
“No, just put him off his feed for a few days,” Shane snorted in amused remembrance._  
\--Josef and Shane, “Prince Charming”   
  
  
**Castle Alexei, 1624:**  
  
  
It was a dirty and disheveled Josef that Sean led into the castle near dawn the morning after their night in the cave. It was customary to meet in the dining room before retiring for the day, and it was there they found Maximilian.  
  
He looked worse.  
  
Their sire had an odd caste to his skin, his eyes were bloodshot and every so often a tremor would go through his body. He brightened though, when he saw the pair walk in.  
  
“My Josef, I feared we’d lost you, my son!” he exclaimed delightedly, kissing a startled Josef on the mouth. “You provided him nourishment?” He asked, and Sean nodded. “He must rest now, take him with you.”  
  
Sean reacted to the unexpected command with a raised eyebrow. He had anticipated, based on past behavior, that Max wouldn’t have let his newest fledgling out of his sight for weeks, time he needed to condition the new vampire to his expectations (i.e. brainwashing).  
  
“I regret that I’m feeling…under the weather at the moment. I shall be unable to take him on his first hunt. You’ll have to take him out tonight,” Max explained with obvious reluctance. “I will see to his initiation at the first available opportunity.”  
  
“Yes, Sire,” Sean answered, surprising both of them by his use of the formal term of respect.  
  
“Your brother will take good care of you in my absence,” Max told Josef with an overly familiar caress to his cheek. “Our little Jay-Jay. Jay-Jay and Shay-Shay,” he said in a sing-song voice, taking his other hand and giving Sean a mirroring caress. Then he kissed him on the mouth as well. “Wouldn’t want our Shay-Shay to feel left out,” he said with a wink at Josef. “Now, be off to bed with you.”  
  
The bizarre behavior would have had Sean wondering for his sire’s sanity – if he hadn’t already decided Max must be insane. Later he’d find out it was only an escalation of the bizarre pseudo-family delusions Max had, when the “pet names” turned into a method of derision. Or at least until Shane and Josef stopped reacting and embraced the nicknames instead, claiming them for their own and removing that particular weapon from Maximilian’s arsenal.  
  
Maximilian had sequestered himself away in the dungeon after that first meeting with Josef, and no one saw or heard from him for several days. Sean wondered if he would survive, but it was only idle curiosity, he couldn’t bring himself to muster much concern. It turned out to be a very fortuitous situation; it gave Sean an opportunity with Josef that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. One that just might have made all the difference in the world.  
  
XXX  
  
_“There is no cure for vampirism, Mick, if there was I would know about it. Not that I would care. Personally, there’s no way I’d ever go back to the mortal coil.”_  
\--Josef to Mick, The Ringer  
  
  
The night was alive.  
  
All his senses were bombarding him with amazing sensations. The soft breeze whispered promises in his ear, as it caressed his skin like a lover. The taste of his meal was still rich on his tongue. He could smell things he never had before, couldn’t even categorize them all yet. And sight…  
  
Josef smiled predatorily. The adrenalin from the hunt was still flooding his body, excess energy yearning to be spent. He’d always been more of an intellectual. He’d learned the more refined gentlemanly skills like fencing, but wasn’t fond of the hard work or the physical exertion required in hand to hand combat, he preferred leaving that to others. Now though… the strength coursing through him was exhilarating, intoxicating… as was the vampire in front of him.  
  
“You do enjoy playing with your food,” Sean remarked with a smirk. “Like a little child,” he teased affectionately.  
  
“Come play with me,” Josef invited, circling around Sean. “Big, strong vampire, huh? Think you can catch me?” he taunted. Sean’s eyes barely had time to silver over before Josef was sprinting away, covering ground as fast as his new vamp abilities could get him.  
  
Josef ducked behind a large oak tree, its girth giving him shelter. Excitement from this new kind of hunt was making it hard to focus but he made himself relax and strained his hearing for signs of the older vampire. He immediately felt an electric tingle and tensed in anticipation, but Sean didn’t touch him, just remained still, close enough behind him to feel without contact.  
  
“You can’t hide from me,” the low voice spoke directly into his ear. “I can hear you, smell you, feel you…”  
  
With a whoop of mischief, Josef darted away again, but didn’t get far before a heavy weight slammed into him and sent him to the ground.  
  
“You don’t know what you’re playing at, little boy,” Sean growled, shifting his weight harder into the body under him, pinning him.  
  
Josef shivered. “So teach me.” Challenging again, as always.  
  
Sean swooped in and claimed his lips in a kiss meant to be bruising. A taste of vampire lust. He pulled back after a few moments, visibly trying to get some control.  
  
The challenge in Josef’s eyes turned to something darker, and he pushed his lower body upward into Sean’s.  
  
“Tease, ay?”  
  
“You’re the tease,” Josef dared accuse, letting his legs fall wider apart for more access to the stimulation.  
  
“So be it.” With that, Sean leaned back just far enough to grab hold of the sides of Josef’s shirt, ripping it open. The sound was loud, so loud in the nighttime quiet.  
  
Josef’s manhood surged in reaction, the breath he didn’t need catching on a gasp. When Sean paused, he boldly reached out and placed Sean’s hands on his trousers, silently begging. Readily complying, Sean ripped them open as well. Josef moaned as the cool air hit his erection, still not used to the effects of his heightened senses.  
  
The other vampire’s fingers explored his exposed body, pinching and teasing, coaxing reactions from it that Josef had never experienced. By turns soothing and inflaming, the touch stirred overwhelming desires. He thought about how the courtesans brought to him had not been this skillful at making his body fly… now he was dead, yet he felt more alive than he ever had before.  
  
He reached out and touched a hand to Sean’s chest, fingering the material of his shirt. “May I undress you?” he asked, finding it voice had now turned hesitant and shy.  
  
Sean smiled at him. “Please.”  
  
He was annoyed to find his fingers trembled with the fastenings. Sean’s covered them, and together they divested him of the shirt. It slid to the ground. His fingers didn’t dally there long, too impatient to explore the prominent bulge under the snug fitting breeches. He rubbed it experimentally. Pleased at the moan it earned him, he squeezed harder.  
  
Sean’s reaction was immediate. He moved away just long enough to push out of the pants, then straddled Josef’s body again.  
  
Josef’s gaze was riveted to the other man’s erection. He stroked it in a loose circle of fingers, avidly taking in every reaction his touch produced. He licked his lip, catching it on one of the fangs that he had yet to learn how to keep from emerging. Aroused like this, it was impossible not to vamp out. He had little control yet at the best of times.  
  
Sean bent to him, taking his mouth and sucking on his lip before it healed. He surged forward, their naked lower bodies collided, and stars burst behind his tightly closed eyes. He felt himself slowly slipping away in a sensual haze. He wanted so much, but had no way yet to put his desires into words.  
  
“More…” he pleaded, trusting the experienced vampire to know what he wanted and needed.  
  
The move was startlingly sudden. Before he knew it, he was flipped over on his stomach, his ass cheeks parted, and… a sinfully talented tongue was sending him into space. He almost came then, but the hand that had snaked under him squeezed his erection in a way that staved it off. He cried out at the aborted release, both from regret and relief.   
  
“Patience. It will be worth it,” Sean promised in a sultry whisper, nibbling on his ear briefly before returning to his task of loosening Josef up. “It may hurt a bit, the first few times, but that will not last long. And remember, you’re a vampire now, you can’t be injured.”  
  
Eventually the tongue was replaced by a spit covered finger, and the unusual feeling was both exotic and erotic, and only left him wanting more. Then it pressed deeper, purposefully, as if with a destination in mind…  
  
His own scream made his ears ring. Grabbing fistfuls of earth and grass, he bucked backwards for more stimulation. Frustratingly, Sean evaded his effort by moving away. Immediately he was back though, and this time something much bigger was pressing at his entrance.  
  
Josef went completely still, instinctively knowing he needed to relax. He shook all over with anticipation as his body was slowly, carefully, opened. There was some discomfort initially, the alien feeling of being filled this way burned, but he concentrated instead on the feelings created by the hand that was under him again and stroking his erection back to the fullness that he’d lost doing the initial penetration.  
  
“Pleasure like you never imagined,” Sean murmured to him, before pressing all the way home.  
  
Josef screamed a second time, as that spot inside him was hit again. In the moment before he lost all his brain’s higher functioning, he had to agree, this was like nothing he’d ever felt before. It was indescribable ecstasy washing over his entire body. He bucked back violently, meeting the thrusts, his hands digging into the dirt convulsively, ripping up the grass by its roots. The feel of it against his skin was nature’s caress, the smell of the rich soil and their sex filling his nostrils combining to form an irresistible aphrodisiac. Their growls and moans joined with the other creatures of the night as their bodies coupled in wild abandon. He was no longer a man; he was a part of nature in this primal moment, letting the trappings of the human world go without a care.  
  
Just when he thought he couldn’t take any more and would die from the pleasure (if he wasn’t already dead), sharp fangs pierced his neck and the sucking of the blood from his body was the last push he needed. At the same time he found an arm under his mouth and immediately bit down. At the first taste of Sean’s blood on his tongue, orgasm slammed into him hard enough to force an inhuman howl from his throat.  
  
The world was silent and dark again. As if it hadn’t just been shattered apart.  
  
“This is how good it can be,” Sean murmured when they started coming back to their senses. “Remember that,” he said with an odd note in his voice that Josef wouldn’t understand until later.  
  
Josef winced as Sean pulled out, but already he could feel the soreness that a human would undoubtedly carry fading away into nothing. He flipped over to his back and stared at Sean in wonder at what they had just shared. From the first moment he’d awoken (risen from the dead?) and looked into those crystal eyes… he should have been horrified, yet something inside had told him it would be okay. The townsfolk saw them as creatures, but how could the clear, penetrating blue that he knew had watched him so carefully for any signs of discomfort be the eyes of a monster? The trust had been automatic.  
  
“I heard vampires can hold sway over the minds of humans,” he said in a questioning tone.  
  
Sean shook his head. “No, not in the way you’ve been told. Humans are attracted to us even as they fear us.”  
  
“Why?” he asked, puzzled at the strange dichotomy.  
  
“They see their own darkness reflected in us. They can pretend to have no control over it, that it isn’t their doing. We take the blame.”  
  
Josef was silent, pondering what he’d said.  
  
“I blame Christianity,” Sean stated in a lighter tone, grinning. “We didn’t have these problems with the old Gods.” He jumped to his feet, extending a hand to Josef. “Come. We must get cleaned up.”  
  
XXX  
  
They bathed in the Volkhov, playfully dunking each other and exchanging gropes and kisses as the mood struck. Sean made certain they both got very clean between the laughing and playing; they had to pass the vampire nose test. Max could never know about what they’d done.  
  
Josef boldly grabbed Sean around the waist as he tried to leave the water later, fastening his mouth to the other vampire’s neck. He couldn’t resist sinking his fangs in, drawing blood which he drank hungrily. It wasn’t like feeding. This was a different kind of hunger, one he couldn’t put a name to. Yet just as heady.  
  
Sean groaned, tilting his head back for better access.  
  
“You like me doing this to you,” Josef noted smugly. It wasn’t a question. It was reassuring knowing that with all the feelings Sean dragged from his body, he was able to affect him in return as well.  
  
“I have a very sensitive neck,” Sean joked, allowing him to partake for a few moments before breaking gently away from the embrace. “We need to have a talk,” he told Josef, taking his hand and leading him out of the chilly water.  
  
They sat on their clothing which had been spread out on the ground on the bank. Josef’s were ruined of course, but that could easily be explained as having happened during the hunt.  
  
“There are things you need to know,” Sean began, reluctantly. “Max cannot find out what we’ve done together tonight. We would both be punished.”  
  
It wasn’t like Maximilian could whip Sean; he was a grown vampire now and his sire couldn’t touch him unless he allowed it, but Max was adept at finding non-physical ways of retribution. Looking at this sweetly engaging young man who sat in rapt attention, he knew he’d been right earlier: Max indeed now had another way of getting at Sean. He was becoming attached. And he knew that was a very bad idea.  
  
“Ever?” Josef said in growing alarm. He touched Sean’s arm in entreaty. “Will this be the only time?” He barely knew this man…vampire, yet the thought of never touching him again brought pain with it.  
  
“No, there will be others,” Sean reassured, running a hand through Josef’s hair with a smile. “Many, many others.” Josef relaxed at his words. “But as your sire, he expects to have you first. He calls it the Initiation.”  
  
“I…see,” Josef said, trying to push down the rising sense of dread the ominous words provoked.  
  
“It won’t be like it was with us,” Sean informed him bluntly. “But I survived, as will you. And remember that you can be any kind of vampire you want to be. You don’t have to be like him. That’s all I wanted to say,” he added, abruptly rising. “We’d best be getting back, you’re too young to be able to tolerate the sunrise yet and it’s growing close.”  
  
Without further explanation, Sean quickly made ready for home, leaving Josef to scramble in his wake and ponder his sudden turn of mood.

  
  
XXX

  
  
**Staraya Ladoga, 2010:**  
  
  
They once again played in the chilly water of the Volkhov River, under the light of a half moon. They each tried to dunk the other, mock-wrestling just to enjoy the feel of their cold, wet bodies pressing close.  
  
“Ah ha!” Shane exclaimed victoriously as more things were revealed during their continued reminiscing. “You _wanted_ me to rip the clothes off of you.”  
  
“Uh…” Josef said intelligently, scrambling to figure a way out of the trap he’d accidentally gotten himself into.  
  
“You like it,” he added delightedly.  
  
“I really didn’t mean to let that particular cat out of the bag,” Josef muttered.  
  
“You’re never gonna live this one down, you know that,” Shane told him matter-of-factly.  
  
“And you like _this_,” Josef said to change the subject, as he pulled Shane’s body close to him and sunk his fangs into his neck with no warning. In the early days, Josef had sought his blood at every available opportunity. He’d done nothing to discourage it until Max had become displeased.  
  
“Hate it,” Shane gasped, angling his neck for better contact, but he knew neither one of them was listening. “You always did know how to push my buttons,” he added, hands sliding down to cup Josef’s buttocks as the other vampire indulged himself. “Right from the start.” And the energy that was currently bouncing back and forth between them needing release had also been there from that first time. Over the years, he wondered if it would eventually fade, but somehow it never had. Centuries later, it could still catch them off guard and overwhelmed.  
  
“I always trusted you implicitly,” Josef told him, pulling back and watching his puncture wounds close. “You know,” he began conversationally, “I once told Mick that the blood lust can really make you lose control when you’re first turned. Take out the ‘blood’ part, and this is what I mean,” he spoiled the neutral affect with a naughty grin.  
  
“So how was your first time?” Shane asked as he captured Josef around the waist again and held him tightly.  
  
“It was a little bit of good,” Josef said with sly grin, his eyes lit up and telling a much different story. “Slightly okay.”  
  
“Mm hmmm, “Shane murmured knowingly. Those had to be the most absurd understatements either vampire had ever heard in hundreds of years.  
  
“It’ll do.”  
  
“Do I need to do a reenactment to refresh your memory?”  
  
“Yes, please do.”  
  
“Complete with clothes ripping?”  
  
“Oh yes,” he confessed, surrendering.  
  
  
**End part three**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is that dark chapter. Violence and dub-con. I feel it’s necessary to show what shaped Josef and Shane to be who they are, and the scene that follows is all the more intense and poignant for it. Oh, and it shouldn’t need to be said that things that are okay for vampires to use should NOT be used during human sex.
> 
> Max's "altar room was inspired by a photo on Flickr. Providing a link if you want to take a look and get the whole 'experience.' It’s called “Night of the Vampire: Awakening II”. As usual, found it accidentally but it's perfect. http://www.flickr.com/photos/44216394@N00/1442588876/

_The blood lust can be pretty heavy when you’re first turned. You can really lose it. I know I did. Damn those were good times._

\--Josef, Dr. Feelgood  
  
  
  
The captive’s terrified eyes glittered with tears as they caught the flickering light from the candelabra. Josef briefly wondered why Maximilian would bother with lighting at all; their eyesight was far superior to humans and the full moon shining in through the window was more than enough. Then as he watched Max trail a hand over the head of the boy as one might a pet, he realized it was for the mortal. So that he could see what was happening while they toyed with him, and his blood would sing with the heady rush of fear.  
  
The boy was about Josef’s age, sandy haired but slighter of frame. His clothes were tattered and hung on him. A beggar then perhaps, not someone of important standing such as Josef was… as he had been. It might have been him cowering there waiting to be sacrificed, rather than standing next to his sire inhaling the sweet scent of blood and anticipating the tasting. To whom did he owe his good fortune? His sire had chosen to bring him into immortality instead. Josef would make good use of it. He was just a vampire babe yet, but he knew he would make his sire proud. The world was his, Maximilian had promise him this. Kynaz Konstantin would live forever, and amass wealth and power beyond anything he could have achieved in a mortal lifetime, even as royalty. He would see things the sad humans here would never know. He would see history.  
  
Josef licked his lower lip, unable to resist pressing the tip of his tongue against a fang in impatience, a small puncture there before biting into his lower lip where there was more blood to be had. Frustrated with the small amount; he was still learning about blood and the body from a vampire perspective.  
  
The elder vampire scented the air, having caught his fledgling’s bouquet immediately. Smiling, he drew Josef to him and cupped his chin, sealing his mouth over his child’s and sucking the drop from him.  
  
“Your blood tastes of our Sean,” Max told him with both reproach and dark pleasure in his voice. “You are no longer as a babe suckling at our breasts, you need real nourishment.” He dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. “No matter. Tonight we will feast.” His eyes rested hungrily on the captive again.  
  
The blood play reminded Josef of what this night would also bring, and a thread of unease wound around him. He was not afraid though, he knew the bonding of sire and fledgling must take place and the act was not unknown to him now. Sean had made his body sing with a pleasure that was completely unexpected, as he taught him what to do and expect. However, this would not be like his time with Sean, he had no illusions about that. So despite the advance preparation, he was apprehensive.  
  
Max beckoned Josef closer to the prey with a hand on his elbow, a light touch that was nevertheless understood to be more than a request. Then he made the first strike, grabbing the boy’s hair in his fist and yanking his head back so he could sink his fangs deep into the neck. Josef could hear them pushing into soft skin, smell the blood stronger now. The human cried out in pain. Max reared back, fangs bared, dripping blood for Josef to see. The red haze fell over him then; incited by the smell, sound; he could even taste it on the air.  
  
“Drink, my son,” was the last thing Josef remembered hearing before he pounced, growling. Blood lust sang through his veins. Dizzy and drunk, he swallowed the ambrosia. He was aware of Maximilian feeding from the other side. Noise, desire, and fury roared in his ears as he gave himself over to the delicious madness.  
  
And then everything was quiet. Josef blinked, coming back to himself. He looked down at the drained body at his feet, and then turned his heavy lidded, sated gaze to his sire.  
  
Maximilian looked Josef over intently. Only then did he notice that his white shirt and pants were covered with blood and the body didn’t so much resemble a person any longer. His hands and face were covered in blood as well. He’d wanted not just to drink it, but to play in it, swim in it. It felt glorious. He felt invincible, strong with the infusion of blood.  
  
“You’ve made a mess of yourself,” Max told him, but there was approval in his voice. He began removing the stained material from Josef’s body. “I can see I should have undressed you before you ate,” he said with a smile. Then the rough hands held him firm as Max began licking the blood from his skin.  
  
It sent delicious shivers through his body. For one moment Josef wished it were Sean he was sharing this with, but cut off the thought quickly as it was not something he should be thinking. His sire would be angry if he knew.  
  
When he was clean (and aroused from the wicked tongue), Max rang a bell and a servant quickly scuttled in to remove the dead body. Josef became self conscious about his nudity and turned away.  
  
Maximilian pulled him back to face the servant. “You’re gorgeous. You have nothing to be ashamed of, no need to hide that strong, appealing body. Doesn’t he have a wonderful body, Pater?”  
  
The servant glanced briefly at Josef, and then dropped his eyes again. “Yes sir, he does.”  
  
“You’ll enjoy feeding our young master Josef,” Max said in an innuendo-laced voice.  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
When Pater had left the room with the body, Max turned his complete attention to Josef. “Have you satisfied all your hungers, my son?” His eyes lowered, staring openly at his fledgling’s erection.  
  
“No sir.”  
  
Josef watched as Max undressed, draping his garments over a chair. When he was naked he stood there and let his fledgling get a good look at him. The thick cock jutted out in excitement. Thicker than Sean’s, but not bigger. Josef had to stifle a grin at the improper thoughts that his sire would most certainly not appreciate.  
  
“Come to my altar, my child.” Maximilian led Josef over to a small, low table in the middle of the room. An ornate candle holder there made the dark finish glow.  
  
His sire manhandled him into position on his hands and knees. It was awkward and rather uncomfortable, the surface of the table rough and hard. Then he felt something, not slippery exactly, but wet, and he knew it to be the leftover blood from their feast. He shuddered.  
  
Maximilian mistook his reaction for pleasure. “You are anxious for this, young one,” he chuckled into an ear.  
  
The entering wasn’t slow and careful as it had been with… the first time. No strokes and caresses to inflame the desire. Josef wanted to pretend he was with Sean, yet didn’t want to bring even the memory of Sean here. The burning increased as the steady push relentlessly continued. Hands roughly spread him apart as far as they could, and his ass was positioned higher to accommodate. It was clearly a degrading position, done to remind him of whom his sire was and who he would obey.  
  
When Max lunged into him, he couldn’t help himself from crying out. “It’s nothing you can’t handle,” Max told him in a rough voice, slapping one cheek so hard it stung. “The pain and pleasure together are glorious, once you give yourself over to it. Give yourself over to me.”  
  
Josef recognized the order. He took a deep breath by habit, and willed his body to relax, quickly. “Yes, my sire.”  
  
The sounds of snarling and growling were loud in the huge room, bouncing off the walls and echoing back. Josef knew to keep silent himself, to show no sign of weakness or pain. Like the difficult trials that humans must go through, he knew this too would be a learning experience, one that he would be stronger for in the end. He was a vampire. He no longer had anything to fear. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, letting his mind distract him with plans for his future.  
  
Yes, it would be glorious.

[](https://imgur.com/0BQOUJR)  
  
  
  
  
  
**Castle Alexei, Altar Room. 2010:**  
  
Once again, pain echoed off the stone walls of the room. Shane sat on the floor with his arms around his drawn up knees, head bowed. “I should have taken better care of you.” It was an agonized whisper. “I should have killed him long before I did.”  
  
Josef was kneeling close, arms around Shane’s shoulders, finding himself in the rare role of comforter. “Shh, it’s okay,” he soothed awkwardly, trying to recall if he’d ever seen Shane really cry before. He had to be hating this. Proud Viking warrior ingrained in him even after all this time, he despised showing those kinds of emotions, even more than Josef truth be told. Reliving everything again was proving to be even harder than they’d realized it would be, and Shane was currently having a meltdown in front of him.  
  
“No. It’s not okay.”  
  
“Yes, it _is_,” Josef insisted, holding the shaking body tighter.  
  
“I never knew…I wouldn’t have…”  
  
His words were disjointed, vague, but somehow Josef knew Shane was referring to his aversion to the hands and knees position and how Shane had enjoyed finding ways to get him into it. Now he knew where Josef’s dislike had sprung from.  
  
“It was different with you.” His tone was soft but firm, commanding no argument.  
  
Shane raised his head, gazing for long moments full of love, awe, and a new understanding. “I really _am_ in love with you.”  
  
Josef stared at the liquid swimming in his eyes and trailing down his cheeks, overwhelmed at the sight of it. “My hero,” he finally said bemusedly, aiming for the light teasing mood that marked so much of their relationship.  
  
The reaction was not what Josef had expected, as he’d been hoping to calm the man down. Shane shook his head violently. “I lied.” It was a confession, ripped from his soul.  
  
Josef just waited patiently, knowing an explanation would be forthcoming.  
  
“You know I never say anything unless I’m 200% certain. But I wasn’t sure. I said it because I couldn’t stand to hurt you anymore.”  
  
Silence descended. It was a good thing Josef and Shane could often communicate on an almost psychic level, because the other vamp was not quite coherent. The answer was a neon sign in Josef’s mind. Or rather, a billboard.  
  
_I’m in love with you._  
  
Josef pondered the equation for long moments, finding no trace of anger or hurt at the news. In fact, he had to fight to keep the fond grin off his face that the other vampire wouldn’t be able to interpret. Shane, sweet, wonderful, dense Shane really needed to get a clue. How much must one person love another to go to such extreme lengths, to seemingly go against the rules of honor they’d lived by for centuries? Someone who was attached to no one for six hundred years, and in one thousand years’ time only allowed two (now, three) people into his heart? Obviously. QED.  
  
Shane, needing _him_, steadfastly refusing to admit it, stubbornly determined to be perfect in his self-assigned role as bigger brother/older vamp. Hiding all those years, just as Josef had hid…  
  
“I wouldn’t blame you if you never trusted me again, but…”  
  
Josef smiled wryly. “Four hundred years. And every time I think I couldn’t _possibly_ love you more, I do.”  
  
Shane blinked at him, opening his mouth a few times then closing it as if unable to get any words out.  
  
In this moment and this place, everything was laid bare. The ingrained armor stripped away, leaving them both figuratively naked, as final truths long hidden were exposed. They left a new, deeper understanding in their wake. Would there be anything left unsaid, when they departed this place of memories?  
  
Josef pulled Shane closer again. “Listen to me,” he demanded, willing the other vampire to actually hear his words this time. “You did everything right. Everything. I needed you exactly as you were, there’s no doubt in my mind now. You _would_ have protected me too much if you’d claimed your position as my sire. We learn and grow more from the bad times than the good, you know that. If things had been different, we wouldn’t be where we are now, today. And I wouldn’t give this up for anything. I’m exactly where I want to be. I have no regrets, and you don’t need to either. Not about me.”  
  
“Thank you,” Shane said in a voice rough with emotion, and Josef thought he could see the weight of centuries lifted from his shoulders.  
  
“I have a great idea. If you want,” Josef added with a touch of shyness, nodding towards the altar. “You can replace that memory with a better one.” He resigned himself to allowing Shane to be as schmaltzy as he wanted, knowing he needed to get it out of his system. To banish the last of the doubt and guilt.  
  
Now that everything was so clear to Josef, the connection and passion and pure emotion between them uncovered of all pretense, there was only one question in his mind.  
  
How could they have ever thought it was anything but love?  
  
  
**End of part four**  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have used the term Knayaz before in relation to Josef, first in "Complications" when Shane called him that, but left it unexplained as one of my obscure hints. It’s a Slavic title denoting a royal nobility rank.


	5. Chapter 5

[ ](https://imgur.com/WL6rKyO)

  
_We didn’t need a castle made of stone, just you there…  
Your heart to hold onto…  
All I ever needed was you._  
\--All I Ever Needed, Bret Michaels  
  
  
  
“Will I ever see my family again?”  
  
Sean gave Josef a look filled with regret. “That part of your life is dead. You would not be welcomed.”  
  
_This is your family now. _Josef could almost hear Max’s voice in his head. That was becoming disturbingly frequent, but he supposed it was good to know your sire, know what was expected of you. He hadn’t been especially close to any of them, it wasn’t their way. He’d always felt separate, different in some way he couldn’t define. He would miss them though; miss the comforting familiarity of home. His distant and cool father would get barely an offhand thought. He’d been grooming Josef for his place in royal society, but Maximilian would take over that part of his life. He felt a pang when thinking about his sister Rayna. They’d been close as children and although grown apart as they became adults, he had a deep affection for her. He consoled himself with the knowledge that she would soon take a husband who would provide for her. His mother… she would mourn him. The loss of her only son would hit her hard. He wished he could spare her that, but there was nothing to be done about it. Technically, Josef _had_ died.  
  
“Best to put it out of your head and not dwell on it, less painful that way,” Sean advised when Josef had been silent in thought for awhile, reaching out to run a hand through his hair.   
  
Josef leaned into the touch. In some ways he felt like a child again, innocent and inexperienced in the ways of his new life. In this new family he’d traded one stern father for another, and this time he was the one with the older brother. Certainly a very strange and rather disturbing version, but nonetheless it was one he could ineffectually fight, or take advantage of. “I think you shall have to distract me,” he told Sean with a small, meaningful smile. “Frequently.”  
  
Shaking his head with a grin of his own, Sean drew Josef closer.  
  
The future that had been planned out for Josef was gone… instead a new one loomed ahead. “Will you be there?” he asked in the moment before their bodies met.  
  
“Always,” Sean vowed.

  
  
XXX

  
  
_Always_ was a long time for vampires, there was something infinitely comforting in that. No matter what changes time wrought, it was one solid thing he could count on.  
  
Josef lay there in the darkness, tracing idle patterns on Shane’s back with a finger. The trip down memory lane they were taking was bringing out uncharacteristic introspection in both of them. He knew they’d be better for it in the long run, but right now… it was bittersweet.  
  
As the final puzzle pieces were falling into place, Josef was now getting the Big Picture. A part of him wished Shane had told him of these things sooner – he would have understood a lot better, maybe not been so…difficult about so many things.  
  
“You would’ve pushed _harder_,” a wry voice startled him.  
  
“Did I say that out loud??”  
  
“They say talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity.” Shane flipped over onto his side, dislodging Josef’s hand in the process.  
  
“Thank god, for a moment there I thought you really _did_ read my mind.”  
  
“Insanity being preferable.”  
  
“Hell, yeah,” Josef affirmed in a lazy drawl that was more a Shaneism.  
  
As he gazed at Shane, Josef knew he couldn’t resent _anything_ that happened, past or present. For everything he put up with, everything he forgave, the years he patiently (well, maybe not as patiently all of the time) for Shane to finally get a clue… Even now, when there was also someone else – it was okay. More than.  
  
Josef couldn’t take credit for the transformation, at least not in its totality, although he didn’t mind that either. Tough, in control, warrior Shane who didn’t need anybody had been flattened by a tiny human being even while she’d been barely formed. Josef hadn’t realized how _much_ a baby could change people, even vampires. Shane had turned to Josef when he needed a shoulder to lean on. Since then things had been…different. More equal. He sensed this trip was an important part of that process, no matter how hard the past was to face.  
  
Maybe they had fallen into habit in the course of the previous centuries, taken each other for granted. That had changed for Josef when Sara had come into their lives and shook the very foundation he was standing on. And Shane was not so much just living in the _now_ anymore. Being a father was changing the way he approached life, causing him to consider the future and reevaluate the past.  
  
“You’re thinking too loud,” Shane quipped eventually.  
  
“Distract me,” Josef told him with an inviting smile.

  
  
XXX

  
  
One of the first things Josef learned… was that there are different kinds of fascination. There’s the kind that fills you with a funny sort of fluttering feeling and makes you smile. That’s the kind he’d felt with Sean since first meeting him. Then there’s a dark kind. Feeling slightly sick inside but finding yourself unable to break free, to untangle yourself from the web the other person has captured you in. Sometimes, only drastic measures can liberate.  
  
“I can’t stay here anymore.”  
  
Josef looked up at Sean, alarmed at the statement that had seemed to come out of nowhere. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I have never been able to stand being around Max for extended periods of time. I’ve been here too long.” There was something haunted in Sean’s eyes; something Josef couldn’t interpret that spoke of more unsaid.  
  
“I don’t want you to go.” Panic was setting in now; he reined it in with a brutal grasp of willpower.  
  
“I…” Sean touched his cheek lightly. “It is definitely not you I wish to be parted from.”  
  
“I’ll go with you,” Josef decided.  
  
“He’ll never allow it.”  
  
There would be a war. Josef knew enough about his sire to recognize that. “You promised me _always_,” he reminded fiercely.  
  
“Yes I did,” Sean answered, as if he had no intentions of abandoning Josef despite how his words had sounded. “There is only one way… I’ll have to kill him.”  
  
Josef gave nothing away, just met his gaze steadily. He said nothing for long moments. “Yes,” was all he finally said.

  
  
XXX

  
  
“I know you have an ulterior motive for this.” Sara stood in the middle of the suite smirking at Josef. He was lounging on the bed, book on Russian nobility (in Russian) in his hand and the baby napping on his chest.  
  
It was nearing the end of their trip, and Josef had offered to babysit for the evening so that Shane could take Sara out for a romantic dinner.  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, do I?”  
  
“Oh yes,” she answered as she rooted around in the bedside table for something.  
  
“You deserve a nice night out, it hasn’t really been much of a vacation for you,” Josef acknowledged. She had remained, quietly and supportively in the background, while the two vampires spent almost all their time together coming to terms with their past.  
  
“True, but that’s not why.” Sara found what she’d been looking for and turned to him again, holding some letters in her hand. “You just want to cuddle the baby when no one can see you.” She looked pointedly to where his hand was rubbing Shara’s back gently.  
  
Okay, so the uncontrollable urge to have a snuggle did emerge from time to time, but still… “Here I’m doing this nice thing for you, and you turn around and insult me,” Josef huffed unconvincingly.  
  
Sara snorted, and thrust the letters towards him. “By the way, I found these one day when I was bored and snooping around,” she admitted. “I don’t know Russian, but I recognized the names on the outside so I thought you might be interested in them.”  
  
As Sara left to join Shane, Josef stared down at one of the letters in his hand, stunned by the names on the envelope. It was addressed to Maximilian Alexei. From Anastasiya Konstantin.  
  
Josef’s mother.  
  
Ignoring the trepidation betrayed by the slight tremble in his hands, he began reading.

  
  
XXX

  
  
Josef stood silently in the doorway watching Shane get ready for bed, as dawn was lightening the landscape outside, unnoticed in the dark recesses of the vampire’s lair. The belt of his robe was cinched tightly around him and his skin was still damp and unearthly pale from the hot shower he’d taken. He waited until Shane stopped what he was doing and looked at him inquiringly.  
  
“Did you know?”  
  
The names on the letter he held up were clearly visible to vampire eyes. Shane stiffened momentarily, but showed no surprise. He nodded once, slightly. “Why do you think I killed him?”  
  
Now a _lot_ made sense. Shane hadn’t killed Max in a spur of the moment fit of fed-up, as he’d always nonchalantly maintained. And he didn’t do it because he wanted to leave. He’d done it for Josef.  
  
The letters had revealed horrific secrets. Josef’s mother had known Maximilian, indeed had suspected exactly what had happened to her son when he’d disappeared, and where he was. It was a small bit of comfort to know that she hadn’t grieved his death. It was a bigger comfort knowing she never knew the extent of what Max had done.  
  
When they’d come to understand the significance of his manner of turning and knew him to have been half vampire and half human, Josef had realized that Vikenti Konstantin wasn’t his real, biological father. He never expected to find out who that person was however.  
  
Never imagined that it was Maximilian Alexei.  
  
In two strides, Shane was in front of Josef. He grabbed his face in both hands, kissing him on the lips. “That’s one secret I _never_ wanted you to find out,” he admitted in a rough voice.  
  
“When?” Josef managed, trusting Shane to know, as always, what he was asking. When had Shane found out?  
  
“The day I came to you and told you I had to go… Max was a sick fucking bastard and I wish I could bring him back from the dead so I could kill him again!” Shane exclaimed in a violent growl. He grabbed Josef’s shoulders when the other vampire swayed a bit on his feet. “I would never have left you with him,” Shane rushed to explain with vehemence. “I just wanted you to feel like it was your decision too; I didn’t want to mess you up any more than you already were.”  
  
Josef laughed, aware the sound wasn’t at all amusing.  
  
“Are you okay?” Shane asked worriedly.  
  
“It was a long time ago,” Josef began. “What difference does it make now? It’s not like I can do anything about it.” And really, one nervous breakdown was enough to last for centuries. All things considered, Josef figured it was probably quite lucky he turned out as sane has he had.  
  
“You’re burning up, you idiot,” Shane chided gently, leading him over to the bed pallet and pushing him down before sitting next to him.  
  
“Yes, I believe that the taps in the shower are not working properly.”  
  
“Right,” Shane drawled, knowing better. He loosened Josef’s robe and pushed it off, guiding his head down as he offered his own neck. “I just fed,” he said in prompting.  
  
“My hero,” Josef whispered, with no trace of anything except sincerity. His brother, lover, sire…protector. His everything.  
  
As he drew strength from the embrace and blood, Josef very carefully and with great precision locked the knowledge of his parentage away in the deep recesses of his mind. He couldn’t afford to let it affect him. Shane needed him. Shara needed her uncle. And he wasn’t going to screw it up, no matter what he faced. For the first time in his entire life, Josef…Konstantin _knew_ that was thinking entirely unselfishly, was considering only someone else’s needs. Loved someone more than himself, unconditionally, without reservation. For his family, he would do anything.  
  
Anything at all.  
  
Lifting his head, Josef kissed Shane with everything inside him, all the feeling and knowledge he couldn’t express in words. The past was dead, put to rest. It was time to face the future.  
  
“Let’s go home.”  
  
  
**End, or beginning?**  
10/21/09  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Castle Alexei doesn’t exist (but Ladoga fortress does).   
Rus, where the word Russian came from -- Vikings. Mind you no, I didn’t know any of this when I made Shane a Viking, or decided to place Josef in Russia.
> 
> This ending segues perfectly into the coming future of HB where Josef will go against the entire vampire nation to protect his family. It reminds me of speculation that the “betrayal” JD mentioned Josef and Mick might go through in the 2nd season of ML could have been him siding with them against Mick and/or Beth. Well, in my universe he’s doing the opposite. Mick and Beth are family as well
> 
> Yes, the baby’s name is Shara. Originally coined by fan MemoryOfTrees long ago as a shipper name for Shane/Sara, I felt it was perfect – of course they would name their kid after themselves. 
> 
> Max as seen in the banner in previous chapter is portrayed by Gerald Butler. I originally wanted someone older, but in surfing for vamps to be Max, he just seemed to fit. Plus he looked insane enough for the part.
> 
> Providence. Kismit. Did I slaved away on hours of research to find the right background setting for the story? No, took me like two seconds. I just wanted to pick out a nice looking castle for the boys, so I googled “castles in Russia.” The first one I checked out because I like the name was Staraya Ladoga and everything was laid out for me just like that, every detail about it was perfect. The village being a major trade route during the Viking era, the Viking burial mounds – it even had caves I had long ago envisioned them hiding in. The original inhabitants being from Norway and Finland… the perfect set up to explain Max’s connection to and interest in Vikings, how Lund ended up with him, and why Max travelled to Norway for Shane. I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. Plus it opens up SO many fascinating possibilities for Shane’s early years. Example: He was turned by Max in 1013. Starting in 1164 Swedish armies arrived – several times – and tried to seize the fortress. All that would have been probably going on while Shane was still living there. I assumed he had totally left his Viking life behind once becoming a vampire, but with this info, who knows… I have to wonder how he would have felt about what was going on around him, considering it was part of a life he’d lost. Or did he??

**Author's Note:**

> Historical notes:
> 
> The word Highwayman is first attested from the year 1617. I don’t know how common they were in Russia or if they had a different word for them, but Sean being a well traveled vamp (especially in Ireland), he would have been familiar with the word.
> 
> The caves really exist. For history buffs, here’s a page with a bit of info on Staraya Ladoga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staraya_Ladoga


End file.
